Psychology core studies

• Cognitive Approach

  Focuses on internal mental processes (thinking, language and memory) are important factors that influence our behaviour. Suggest human behaviour works like a computer, inputs to process to output. Therapies attempt to address faulty thinking.
• Loftus and Palmer (1974)

  -Leading questions

  -lab exp

  -Experiment 1 - 49 ppts watched video, verb

  -Experiment 2 - 150 ppts watched 1 minute video, 3 conditions
• Loftus and Palmer (1974) Results

  Experiment 1- smashed condition 40.4mph, in contacted condition 31.5mph, overall people bad at judging distances.

  Experiment 2 - smashed condition 16/50 said they saw glass, 7/50 in hit condition and 6/50 in no critical question.
• Loftus and Palmer evaluation

  • lab expt, control extraneous variables test re test reliability 
  • quantitative data used
  • lacks ecological validity 
  • ethnocentric as people from individualist cultures might be less affected by leading questions than collectivist.
• Grant - Environmental context dependency

  • look at environmental context dependent.
  • opportunity sample, 39 undergraduate students
  • lab exit, independent measures design
  • in procedure puts wore headphones then did test
• Grant results


  • children in the matching conditions received the highest marks.
  • noise background had little effect on recall,
  • in general the students who studies in the nosy condition performed slightly better overall, therefore background noise does not have detrimental effect on results
  • environmental context dependency does occur for meaningful material.
• Grant Eva

  • lab expt = control extraneous variable = test re-test reliability
  • ethical as informed consent
  • quantitative data
  • ecological validity (reading article mimics a hw task)
  • ethnocentric as individualist cultures tend to focus on learning in the classroom.
• Moray


  Auditory attention
• Moray aim

  1.Investigate Cherry's finding Whether affective messages can break through the attentional barrier


  2. Where set expectations effect message being processed in rejected ear
• Conditions - Moray

  • Unknown participants repeated measures
  • 12 participants repeated measures
  • 14 participants independent measures
• Moray- Condition 1

  1. A message was given into the shadowed ear

  2. List of words in rejected ear

  3. Asked to recall words from list
• Moray - Condition 2

  1. Message in shadowed ear

  2. Affective message in rejected ear
• Moray - Condition 3

  1. Shadowed message had digits inserted at the end

  2. Participants either asked to recall message or digits
• Moray results

  • condition 1: content of rejected message is blocked
  • condition 2: 20/39 of affective messages broke through the block
  • condition 3: unimportant material doesn't break the attentional block.
• Moray Eva

  • lab expt
  • high internal reliability as ppts heard the same prose message
• Simons and Chabris

  • investigate factors that effect visual detection rates, difficulty of task, nature of unexpected event
  • 228 ppts, then 192,
  • watched videotape, 75 seconds
  • asked whether they saw anything
• Simons and Chabris results

  • 46% of ppts didn't see the unexpected event this shows that there is no conscious perception without attention.
  • unexpected events can come through to the area of focus without being detected.
• Simons and Chabris Eva

  • lab expt
  • quantitative data
  • ethical as gave informed consent
  • lacks population validity as undergraduates likely to have better cognitive abilities.